We, a nonpartisan group of foreign affairs specialists, have joined together to call urgently for a change of course in American foreign and national security policy. We judge that the current American policy centered around the war in Iraq is the most misguided one since the Vietnam period, one which harms the cause of the struggle against extreme Islamist terrorists. One result has been a great distortion in the terms of public debate on foreign and national security policy-an emphasis on speculation instead of facts, on mythology instead of calculation, and on misplaced moralizing over considerations of national interest. [1] We write to challenge some of these distortions.

Although we applaud the Bush Administration for its initial focus on destroying al-Qaida bases in Afghanistan, its failure to engage sufficient U.S. troops to capture or kill the mass of al-Qaida fighters in the later stages of that war was a great blunder. It is a fact that the early shift of U.S. focus to Iraq diverted U.S. resources, including special operations forces and intelligence capabilities, away from direct pursuit of the fight against the terrorists. [2]

Many of the justifications offered by the Bush Administration for the war in Iraq have been proven untrue by credible studies, including by U.S. government agencies. There is no evidence that Iraq assisted al-Qaida, and its prewar involvement in international terrorism was negligible. [3] Iraq’s arsenal of chemical and biological weapons was negligible, and its nuclear weapons program virtually nonexistent. [4] In comparative terms, Iran is and was much the greater sponsor of terrorism, and North Korea and Pakistan pose much the greater risk of nuclear proliferation to terrorists. Even on moral grounds, the case for war was dubious: the war itself has killed over a thousand Americans and unknown thousands of Iraqis, and if the threat of civil war becomes reality, ordinary Iraqis could be even worse off than they were under Saddam Hussein. The Administration knew most of these facts and risks before the war, and could have discovered the others, but instead it played down, concealed or misrepresented them.

Policy errors during the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq have created a situation in Iraq worse than it needed to be. Spurning the advice of Army Chief of Staff General Shinseki, the Administration committed an inadequate number of troops to the occupation, leading to the continuing failure to establish security in Iraq. Ignoring prewar planning by the State Department and other US government agencies, it created a needless security vacuum by disbanding the Iraqi Army, and embarked on a poorly planned and ineffective reconstruction effort which to date has managed to spend only a fraction of the money earmarked for it. [5] As a result, Iraqi popular dismay at the lack of security, jobs or reliable electric power fuels much of the violent opposition to the U.S. military presence, while the war itself has drawn in terrorists from outside Iraq.

The results of this policy have been overwhelmingly negative for U.S. interests. [6] While the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime was desirable, the benefit to the U.S. was small as prewar inspections had already proven the extreme weakness of his WMD programs, and therefore the small size of the threat he posed. On the negative side, the excessive U.S. focus on Iraq led to weak and inadequate responses to the greater challenges posed by North Korea’s and Iran’s nuclear programs, and diverted resources from the economic and diplomatic efforts needed to fight terrorism in its breeding grounds in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere in the Middle East. Worse, American actions in Iraq, including but not limited to the scandal of Abu Ghraib, have harmed the reputation of the U.S. in most parts of the Middle East and, according to polls, made Osama Bin Laden more popular in some countries than is President Bush. This increased popularity makes it easier for al-Qaida to raise money, attract recruits, and carry out its terrorist operations than would otherwise be the case.

Recognizing these negative consequences of the Iraq war, in addition to the cost in lives and money, we believe that a fundamental reassessment is in order. Significant improvements are needed in our strategy in Iraq and the implementation of that strategy. We call urgently for an open debate on how to achieve these ends, one informed by attention to the facts on the ground in Iraq, the facts of al-Qaida’s methods and strategies, and sober attention to American interests and values.

Signed (All titles and affiliations listed for purposes of identification only),

Paul Aarts Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Department of Political Science University of Amsterdam

Richard M. Abrams Professor of History and Associate Dean, International & Area Studies University of California Berkeley

Gordon Adams Director, Security Policy Studies, Elliott School of International Affairs George Washington University

Stacie Goddard Visiting Scholar, Center for International Studies University of Southern California

Hein Goemans Assistant Professor of Political Science University of Rochester

David Gold Professor of Economics, Graduate Program in International Affairs New School University

Benjamin Goldfrank Assistant Professor, Political Science Department University of New Mexico

Avery Goldstein Professor, Political Science Department University of Pennsylvania

Judith Goldstein Professor, Department of Political Science Stanford University

Vicki L. Golich Dean, College of Arts & Sciences Professor, Political Science California State University San Marcos

Andrew Gordon Lee and Juliet Folger Fund Professor of History Harvard University

Harry D. Gould Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of International Relations Florida International University

Peter Gourevitch Professor, Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies University of California, San Diego

Joanne Gowa Boswell Professor of World Politics Princeton University

Daniel M. Green Associate Professor, Department of Political Science University of Delaware

Kelly M Greenhill Research Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University and Adjunct Assistant Professor, Columbia University Harvard University and Columbia University

Peter Hays Gries Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, The University of Colorado, Boulder Director, The Sino-American Security Dialogue

Mitchell P. Smith Associate Professor, Department of Political Science and School of International and Area Studies (SIAS) and Co-Director, European Union Center Director of Graduate Studies, SIAS The University of Oklahoma

David G. Smith Emeritus Professor of Political Science Swarthmore College

Michael E. Smith Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science Georgia State University

Duncan Snidal Associate Professor of Political Science & Public Policy University of Chicago

Jack L. Snyder Robert and RenZe Belfer Professor of International Relations Columbia University

Etel Solingen Professor, Department of Political Science University of California Irvine

Dina Spechler Associate Professor, Dept. of Political Science Indiana University

Ronald Spector Professor of History and International Relations, Elliott School of International Relations George Washington University

James C. Sperling Professor, Department of Political Science University of Akron

Valerie Sperling Associate Professor of Government and International Relations Clark University

Victoria Williams Assistant Professor of Political Science Alvernia College

Franke Wilmer Professor and Department Head Montana State University

Morton Winston Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy and Religion The College of New Jersey

Carol Wise Associate Professor, School of International Relations University of Southern California

Eugene R. Wittkopf R. Downs Poindexter Professor of Political Science Louisiana State University

Anders Wivel Associate Professor, Department of Political Science University of Copenhagen

John Womack Jr. Professor, History Department Harvard University

Meredith Woo-Cumings Professor Department of Political Science University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Elisabeth Wood Professor of Political Science Yale University

Susan L. Woodward Professor of Political Science The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Mark Woodward Associate Professor of Religious Studies Arizona State University

Stephen R. Wooten Assistant Professor of Anthropology and International Studies University of Oregon

Lana Wylie Visiting Scholar, International Studies Yale University

Nicholas Xenos Professor of Political Science University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Deborah J. Yashar Associate Professor of Politics and International Affairs Princeton University

M. Crawford Young Professor Emeritus University of Wisconsin, Madison

Mark W. Zacher Professor Emeritus, Centre of International Relations University of British Columbia

Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Professor of Political Science

————————————————————————

[1] On the mythology, see Jack Snyder, "Imperial Temptations," The National Interest, Spring 2003.

[2] See, e.g., James Fallows, "Bush’s Lost Year," The Atlantic, October 2004.

[3] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, "The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States," (W.W. Norton & Co., 2004).

[4] The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications," January 2004; Chaim Kaufmann, "Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas: The Selling of the Iraq War," International Security vol. 29, no. 1 (Summer 2004). Weapons inspector Charles Duelfer concluded Saddam’s Iraq had no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in an interview on NPR’s "All Things Considered," October 6, 2004.

[6] On negative impacts on the war on terrorism, see Mia Bloom, Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, forthcoming); Ivan Arreguin-Toft, "Tunnel at the End of the Light: A Critique of U.S. Counter-Terrorist Grand Strategy," Cambridge Review of International Affairs, vol. 15, no. 3 (2002); Robert A. Pape, "The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism," American Political Science Review 97, no. 3 (August 2003), and "Dying to Kill Us," New York Times, September 22, 2003, p. A17; Anonymous, Imperial Hubris (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2004). Regarding problems in Iraq itself, see Anthony H. Cordesman, "The Critical Role of Iraqi Military, Security, and Police Forces: Necessity, Problems, and Progress," Center for Strategic and International Studies, Third Revised Draft: September 27, 2004 (3.1); David Rapoport, "The Fourth Wave: September 11 in the History of Terrorism," Current History (December 2001); and Douglas Jehl, "US Intelligence Shows Pessimism On Iraq’s Future," The New York Times, September 16, 2004, page A1.

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only.

October 12, 2004

An Open Letter to the American People

Time for a Change of Course

by SECURITY SCHOLARS FOR A SENSIBLE FOREIGN POLICY

We, a nonpartisan group of foreign affairs specialists, have joined together to call urgently for a change of course in American foreign and national security policy. We judge that the current American policy centered around the war in Iraq is the most misguided one since the Vietnam period, one which harms the cause of the struggle against extreme Islamist terrorists. One result has been a great distortion in the terms of public debate on foreign and national security policy-an emphasis on speculation instead of facts, on mythology instead of calculation, and on misplaced moralizing over considerations of national interest. [1] We write to challenge some of these distortions.

Although we applaud the Bush Administration for its initial focus on destroying al-Qaida bases in Afghanistan, its failure to engage sufficient U.S. troops to capture or kill the mass of al-Qaida fighters in the later stages of that war was a great blunder. It is a fact that the early shift of U.S. focus to Iraq diverted U.S. resources, including special operations forces and intelligence capabilities, away from direct pursuit of the fight against the terrorists. [2]

Many of the justifications offered by the Bush Administration for the war in Iraq have been proven untrue by credible studies, including by U.S. government agencies. There is no evidence that Iraq assisted al-Qaida, and its prewar involvement in international terrorism was negligible. [3] Iraq’s arsenal of chemical and biological weapons was negligible, and its nuclear weapons program virtually nonexistent. [4] In comparative terms, Iran is and was much the greater sponsor of terrorism, and North Korea and Pakistan pose much the greater risk of nuclear proliferation to terrorists. Even on moral grounds, the case for war was dubious: the war itself has killed over a thousand Americans and unknown thousands of Iraqis, and if the threat of civil war becomes reality, ordinary Iraqis could be even worse off than they were under Saddam Hussein. The Administration knew most of these facts and risks before the war, and could have discovered the others, but instead it played down, concealed or misrepresented them.

Policy errors during the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq have created a situation in Iraq worse than it needed to be. Spurning the advice of Army Chief of Staff General Shinseki, the Administration committed an inadequate number of troops to the occupation, leading to the continuing failure to establish security in Iraq. Ignoring prewar planning by the State Department and other US government agencies, it created a needless security vacuum by disbanding the Iraqi Army, and embarked on a poorly planned and ineffective reconstruction effort which to date has managed to spend only a fraction of the money earmarked for it. [5] As a result, Iraqi popular dismay at the lack of security, jobs or reliable electric power fuels much of the violent opposition to the U.S. military presence, while the war itself has drawn in terrorists from outside Iraq.

The results of this policy have been overwhelmingly negative for U.S. interests. [6] While the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime was desirable, the benefit to the U.S. was small as prewar inspections had already proven the extreme weakness of his WMD programs, and therefore the small size of the threat he posed. On the negative side, the excessive U.S. focus on Iraq led to weak and inadequate responses to the greater challenges posed by North Korea’s and Iran’s nuclear programs, and diverted resources from the economic and diplomatic efforts needed to fight terrorism in its breeding grounds in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere in the Middle East. Worse, American actions in Iraq, including but not limited to the scandal of Abu Ghraib, have harmed the reputation of the U.S. in most parts of the Middle East and, according to polls, made Osama Bin Laden more popular in some countries than is President Bush. This increased popularity makes it easier for al-Qaida to raise money, attract recruits, and carry out its terrorist operations than would otherwise be the case.

Recognizing these negative consequences of the Iraq war, in addition to the cost in lives and money, we believe that a fundamental reassessment is in order. Significant improvements are needed in our strategy in Iraq and the implementation of that strategy. We call urgently for an open debate on how to achieve these ends, one informed by attention to the facts on the ground in Iraq, the facts of al-Qaida’s methods and strategies, and sober attention to American interests and values.

Signed (All titles and affiliations listed for purposes of identification only),

Paul Aarts Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Department of Political Science University of Amsterdam

Richard M. Abrams Professor of History and Associate Dean, International & Area Studies University of California Berkeley

Gordon Adams Director, Security Policy Studies, Elliott School of International Affairs George Washington University

Stacie Goddard Visiting Scholar, Center for International Studies University of Southern California

Hein Goemans Assistant Professor of Political Science University of Rochester

David Gold Professor of Economics, Graduate Program in International Affairs New School University

Benjamin Goldfrank Assistant Professor, Political Science Department University of New Mexico

Avery Goldstein Professor, Political Science Department University of Pennsylvania

Judith Goldstein Professor, Department of Political Science Stanford University

Vicki L. Golich Dean, College of Arts & Sciences Professor, Political Science California State University San Marcos

Andrew Gordon Lee and Juliet Folger Fund Professor of History Harvard University

Harry D. Gould Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of International Relations Florida International University

Peter Gourevitch Professor, Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies University of California, San Diego

Joanne Gowa Boswell Professor of World Politics Princeton University

Daniel M. Green Associate Professor, Department of Political Science University of Delaware

Kelly M Greenhill Research Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University and Adjunct Assistant Professor, Columbia University Harvard University and Columbia University

Peter Hays Gries Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, The University of Colorado, Boulder Director, The Sino-American Security Dialogue

Mitchell P. Smith Associate Professor, Department of Political Science and School of International and Area Studies (SIAS) and Co-Director, European Union Center Director of Graduate Studies, SIAS The University of Oklahoma

David G. Smith Emeritus Professor of Political Science Swarthmore College

Michael E. Smith Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science Georgia State University

Duncan Snidal Associate Professor of Political Science & Public Policy University of Chicago

Jack L. Snyder Robert and RenZe Belfer Professor of International Relations Columbia University

Etel Solingen Professor, Department of Political Science University of California Irvine

Dina Spechler Associate Professor, Dept. of Political Science Indiana University

Ronald Spector Professor of History and International Relations, Elliott School of International Relations George Washington University

James C. Sperling Professor, Department of Political Science University of Akron

Valerie Sperling Associate Professor of Government and International Relations Clark University

Victoria Williams Assistant Professor of Political Science Alvernia College

Franke Wilmer Professor and Department Head Montana State University

Morton Winston Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy and Religion The College of New Jersey

Carol Wise Associate Professor, School of International Relations University of Southern California

Eugene R. Wittkopf R. Downs Poindexter Professor of Political Science Louisiana State University

Anders Wivel Associate Professor, Department of Political Science University of Copenhagen

John Womack Jr. Professor, History Department Harvard University

Meredith Woo-Cumings Professor Department of Political Science University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Elisabeth Wood Professor of Political Science Yale University

Susan L. Woodward Professor of Political Science The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Mark Woodward Associate Professor of Religious Studies Arizona State University

Stephen R. Wooten Assistant Professor of Anthropology and International Studies University of Oregon

Lana Wylie Visiting Scholar, International Studies Yale University

Nicholas Xenos Professor of Political Science University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Deborah J. Yashar Associate Professor of Politics and International Affairs Princeton University

M. Crawford Young Professor Emeritus University of Wisconsin, Madison

Mark W. Zacher Professor Emeritus, Centre of International Relations University of British Columbia

Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh Professor of Political Science

————————————————————————

[1] On the mythology, see Jack Snyder, "Imperial Temptations," The National Interest, Spring 2003.

[2] See, e.g., James Fallows, "Bush’s Lost Year," The Atlantic, October 2004.

[3] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, "The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States," (W.W. Norton & Co., 2004).

[4] The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications," January 2004; Chaim Kaufmann, "Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas: The Selling of the Iraq War," International Security vol. 29, no. 1 (Summer 2004). Weapons inspector Charles Duelfer concluded Saddam’s Iraq had no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in an interview on NPR’s "All Things Considered," October 6, 2004.

[6] On negative impacts on the war on terrorism, see Mia Bloom, Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, forthcoming); Ivan Arreguin-Toft, "Tunnel at the End of the Light: A Critique of U.S. Counter-Terrorist Grand Strategy," Cambridge Review of International Affairs, vol. 15, no. 3 (2002); Robert A. Pape, "The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism," American Political Science Review 97, no. 3 (August 2003), and "Dying to Kill Us," New York Times, September 22, 2003, p. A17; Anonymous, Imperial Hubris (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2004). Regarding problems in Iraq itself, see Anthony H. Cordesman, "The Critical Role of Iraqi Military, Security, and Police Forces: Necessity, Problems, and Progress," Center for Strategic and International Studies, Third Revised Draft: September 27, 2004 (3.1); David Rapoport, "The Fourth Wave: September 11 in the History of Terrorism," Current History (December 2001); and Douglas Jehl, "US Intelligence Shows Pessimism On Iraq’s Future," The New York Times, September 16, 2004, page A1.